Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune eBook

“You are out of spirits. Father Cuthbert’s
tales are not so bad, after all you seemed to like
the legend he told us the other night.”

“Yes, about our ancestor Sebbald and his glorious
death; there was something in that tale worth hearing;
it stirred the blood—­none of your moping
saints, that Sebbald.”

“I once heard another legend from Father Cuthbert,
about the burning of Croyland Abbey, and how the abbot
stood, saying mass at the altar, without flinching
or even turning his head, when the Danes, having fired
the place, broke into the chapel. Do you not think
it wanted more bravery to do that in cold blood than
to stand firm in all the excitement of a battle?”

“You are made to be a monk, Alfred, and I daresay,
if you get the chance, will be a martyr, and get put
in the calendar by-and-by. I suppose they will
keep your relics here in the priory church, and you
will be St. Alfred of Aescendune; for me, I would sooner
die as the old sea kings loved to die, surrounded
by heaps of slain, with my sword broken in my hand.”

It was at this moment that their conversation was
suddenly interrupted by a loud crashing of boughs
in the adjacent underwood, a rush as of some wild
beast, a loud cry in boyish tones—­“Help!
help! the wolf! the wolf!”

Elfric jumped up in an instant, and rushed forward
heedless of danger, followed closely by his younger
brother, who was scarcely less eager to render immediate
assistance.

The cries for help became more and more piercing,
as if some pressing danger menaced the utterer.
Elfric, who, in spite of his flippant speech, was
by no means destitute of keen sympathies and self devotion,
hurried forward, fearless of danger, bounding through
thicket and underwood, until, arriving upon a small
clearing, the whole scene flashed upon him.

A huge grey wolf, wounded and bleeding, was about
to rush for the second time upon a youth in hunting
costume, whose broken spear, broken in the first encounter
with the beast he had disturbed, seemed to deprive
him of all chance of success in the desperate encounter
evidently impending. His trembling limbs showed
his extreme apprehension, and the sweat stood in huge
drops on his forehead; his eyes were fixed upon the
beast as if he were fascinated, while the shaft of
his spear, presented feebly against the coming onslaught,
showed that he had lost his self possession, for he
neglected the bow and arrows which were slung at his
side—­if indeed there was time to use them.

The beast sprang, but as he did so another spear was
stoutly presented to meet him, and he literally impaled
himself in his eager spring on the weapon of Elfric.

Still, such was his weight that the boy fell backward
beneath the mighty rush, and such the tenacity of
life that, though desperately wounded, even to death,
the beast sought the prostrate lad with teeth and claws,
in frantic fury, until a blow from the hunting knife,
which Elfric well knew how to use, laid the wolf lifeless
at his side.